In the Shadows of Dawn
by Doleesa
Summary: Nico can't lose her like she lost Amy. (My take on the beginning of season 3 (I hope! They better not drag out rescuing the others!) and how Nico is handling it all)


**A/N: So, like. Hi.**

**I love this show, though I don't read the comics. So, as a result, I'm not even going to pretend like I understand the details or powers or what have you. This is just my take on the characters and their feelings based on what I've seen.**

**This is the direct result of me going into withdrawal and not having any kind of content to tide me over til the new season starts. I must have watched the same scenes on Youtube dozens of times by now, and I've - no joke - gone through the entire archive from the first page to the last. I've even rewatched both seasons twice each. So, when all else fails, and there's just not enough content - make your own.**

**Also, if you're here from any of my Supergirl/Supercorp work, just know I'm sorry for being absent for so long; I'm trying to get back into the groove of things in that fandom. It's just slow progress.**

**Feel free to find me on tumblr, just search for dishonoringthefamilycow.**

**Read on, enjoy, and leave a comment below!**

* * *

She gives herself one night.

Not a day.

Only one night. To grieve. To hurt. To cry.

To feel.

One night.

When the sun rises, she allows herself the few moments it takes to soak in the light, soak in the pink and purple and orange hues.

Colors that are achingly familiar.

Colors that offer no warmth now, no safety. No sense of home.

As the darkness fades, and the lingering stars vanish, so do Nico's emotions.

* * *

They're loud.

They have been arguing for what feels like hours now, but is likely only thirty minutes.

Reasonably, Leslie thinks, Alex wants to stay hidden and make a plan.

Unsurprisingly, Molly's all about taking the fight to their parents.

Nico-

Well.

Nico only has one thing – one person – on her mind and she'll move the heavens to get her way.

The way the Staff, clenched in her white-knuckled grip, seems to crackle with anticipation, Leslie worries she might actually do that.

She wonders if she should address the reason Nico Minoru is about to raise hell for her daughter. Wonders if she should try having a talk with Nico.

But then, somewhere above them, the clear blue sky rumbles with thunder and there is a sudden chill in the cavernous underground Hostel.

The screaming has stopped and in its stead, there's silence and tension.

Alex and Molly's eyes are cautiously on Nico, or rather, Nico's Staff.

Nico herself doesn't even seem to be aware that the Staff of One is aglow with a light almost blindingly bright.

Molly's got her hands raised like she's about to approach a starving, cranky Old Lace when she takes a step closer, but even that halts halfway when Nico's voice, menacing like a roiling ocean, announces her plans.

"I'm going, Alex. You can't stop me. But you _can_ stay out of my way."

When she turns, the long, flowing cape-like thing she's wearing fluttering behind her, her words set a chill down Leslie's spine, and a shadow falls over the Hostel through the skylight.

"And this time when I kill him? I'll make it stick."

* * *

The Staff shows her where to go.

It makes way for her, carves her path with a fury borne from her own touch, her own desires, unspoken.

Only sensed and felt and simply acted upon.

The remnants of the Steins' home resemble aftermaths of a natural disaster.

And she hasn't even reached the basement yet.

But Stacey Yorkes is in her way, but it isn't exactly her.

Her eyes are cold and empty, almost dead.

She hasn't even asked about Gert or Molly.

Nico doesn't get time to dwell or taunt or ask questions because Stacey isn't Stacey and before she knows it, there is a beam of pure light energy coming at her face.

Nico doesn't get time to dwell or question herself when the Staff glows and goes on the defensive on its own, protecting her.

When she goes on the offensive, though, Nico is in full control. Enough so that Not-Stacey is left off balance and tagging out when Tina Minoru, wearing a startlingly _gleeful_ expression walks into the room.

Her eyes are hungry on the Staff of One.

Nico's rage builds, white-hot and energizing, loosening her muscles and making her swings and spells and shouts smoother than ever before.

She's beat up this witch before, and won. She'll do it again without hesitation or remorse.

And even though the creature masquerading as Tina, smiling manically like Nico's ever seen before, puts up one hell of a fight, Nico still leads this dance.

She gets into the next room, into the heart of Victor Stein's laboratory.

Two out of the three tubes she remembers seeing during their Church break-in are occupied, but she can't tear her eyes off of the empty tube.

It's all the distraction Tina needs to get the upper hand.

She's still seeing the empty tube, mind racing with the implications, with the alternatives.

With the notion that she's too late.

Like she was when it came to Amy.

Images of a pale face, cold and blue lips, and a crown of golden hair splayed on their bed, in the Treehouse assault her mind's eye, only jarred out of it when her shoulder makes contact with something, the pain registering as the control panel she smacked into hisses and sizzles.

She didn't even realize that Not-Tina got close enough to toss her across the room.

Nico's tenuous grip on her control and strength is waning as she spirals into her own mind.

There are hands on her shoulders. Not Not-Tina's hands, not ones aimed to hurt her. They're tugging and pulling and trying to move her.

Nico feels like there is a boulder sitting atop her chest, crushing the air out of her lungs as her eyes stay stuck on the empty tube.

She doesn't even register when the Staff, hungry for more blood, sparks and hums and pulses with insatiable appetite and raw power in her hand, desperate to be used.

Jonah has stepped into the room.

She feels a tug in her belly, pulling inward. Like something is pulling her core, her soul, backwards to make space for something else. A tug that is growing more and more familiar, terrifyingly so.

Except, right now, it's a feeling she relishes, is grateful to feel. This is what will get Karolina back.

So she surrenders herself wholly to the feeling, lets herself be tugged back and makes as much space as she can for the darkness to coat her insides fully. Allows the cold, wet tendrils inside thicken under her skin until they form one cohesive entity, flowing freely along her flesh and in her veins.

The last thing her mind makes note of, as she lets herself fall back into nothing, is a woman's scream, filled with pain.

As her vision goes black, she prays the scream ringing about is hers and not Karolina's.

* * *

_It's warm. _

_It's soft and smooth and warm to the touch. _

_Skin. That's what she's touching. _

_The barest hint of movement lets her know her fingers have slipped under well-worn fabric, a light cotton thing that smells so familiar._

_The belly she's touching is so warm, and her fingers take the path they've memorized by now; the beginning grooves and cuts of building abs, forming from hours of training and working out together._

_Her heart rattles around behind her ribs, and her breath bounces against the walls of her lungs because she can __**hear**__ the smile and __**feel**__ the softest vibrations that precede the quiet words._

"_You're doing it again, Nico."_

_And, yeah, Nico's arm is trapped under the firm body pressed to her chest and utterly consumed by the pins and needles feeling, but it doesn't matter. _

_She pulls. Karolina closer against her front, herself tighter against Karolina's back, __**it**__**doesn't**__**matter**__._

_She just needs to __**be**__. _

_Needs to press her face into the crook of Karolina's neck, needs to fill her lungs and heart and all the cracks in her soul with the scent of the sun and the light and __**Karolina**__._

_Needs this warmth to melt away the frost that's settled into her bones._

_So Nico fills her nose and head with all that is Karolina as she inhales slow and exhales even slower. _

_And if she so happens to flatten her palm across the belly under her wandering fingertips, causing the muscles spasm and tense and jump?_

_So be it._

_Karolina's soft shrieks of protest, melting away into sleepy giggles as she tries to wiggle free from Nico's tickling touch is the only sound Nico needs to live._

_And if their sleepy, playful mood melts into something more serious, more ardent, with blond hair spreading like the sun's rays across a pillow and Nico overhead, like the faithful shadow that trails the light everywhere?_

_Well._

_So be it._

* * *

When Nico's eyes open in the dark room, she's met with nothing.

No weight in her bed, against her body, numbing her arm.

She can still feel the tingling in her lips.

* * *

Chase is here with them again; that's how Nico's back in the Hostel.

Janet Stein has made the escape with them too.

Nico watches, blending into the shadows of the columns, from the upper level as everyone is brought up to speed with what happened.

'_With my failure to bring back Karolina…'_

Apparently, there's more to Janet Stein than meets the eye because right now, she's their leading expert on whatever the hell Jonah and his family are, right after Xavin.

'_Whatever Karolina is…' _

She's filling in the rest of the Runaways and Leslie about everything she's learned as Nico silently makes her way down to them.

Her mind is still straining somewhat to recover from the experience of letting someone – or maybe some_thing_ \- else run the show, so it doesn't even register that she's somehow summoned the Staff of One into her hand.

She must be so quiet and small and hidden because nobody looks her way, nobody censors themselves like they have been since Karolina was taken.

"I don't know what happened, to be honest. One minute I'm in this endless loop of torment, watching you guys get hurt and killed, watching our asshole parents try to force Gert into that damned glowing box-"

Chase can't bring himself to finish that description. He simply moves on.

"Next thing I know, I'm on my knees and Mom's pulling me up to get the hell out of there, and Nico's- well, it looked bad. I've never seen her like that before. She almost killed Stacey and Tina when-"

This time, when he pauses the story, he doesn't pick it back up again.

So Janet does.

"We heard a scream from somewhere further in the house. That was all the distraction it took, and Nico was blasted back. When the blinding light faded, Vic- _Jonah_ was there. The two fought but Nico wasn't a match for Jonah, even in her- special state."

"But she hurt him. Enough that Mom and I could drag her off and get the hell out of there. But- the screams… and we didn't find Karolina-"

Nico's stomach drops because she remembers the screaming.

She's about to make her presence known because Leslie looks really pale, and swaying like she may fall over, and Nico's promised herself that – even though she loathes all of their parents – she'll protect Leslie and her baby. For Karolina.

But Janet freaking Stein isn't done talking apparently.

"There's- something else. Jonah's skin was back to normal, no more flaking. That usually means a sacrifice, but- I think that perhaps Karolina's different physiology means he – all of them – don't need a routine sacrifice anymore. That Karolina might be acting like a charger for their batteries. It would explain the screaming…"

The silence in the Hostel thickens, almost suffocating, as everyone lets that sink in, Leslie's knees giving out indeed, steadied by Xavin to a chair.

Nico's rooted to the spot on the stairs, the lead that had been filling her belly overflowing into her limbs and weighing her down, and _goddess why is Janet __**still **__speaking?_

"So while Nico's attack was to our benefit, it wasn't to Karolina's. It means that, while they have her, they're pretty much indestructible because every time they're hurt or weakened they can just put Karolina back into the box-"

The power in the Hostel surges, the lights brightening and flickering, some bulbs around the room even bursting.

Everyone's looking to the stairs – they see Nico at last.

Surprisingly, it's Xavin that tries to approach her.

Big mistake.

Nico doesn't even feel it, doesn't even register that she's done it until half the people at the bottom of the stairs are running in the opposite direction.

The Staff has flung Xavin away, slammed right into the wall.

Nico's heart trips in her chest, loud and banging against her ribcage. Her palm feels sticky, fingers struggling to unclench from around the Staff.

The Staff, for its part, seems to be petulant, refusing to part with Nico, practically pouting that it did nothing wrong. Xavin was coming, and- well, the Staff doesn't like Xavin.

But it does power down and allows itself to be dropped because it senses Nico's utter panic and need for separation.

Nico's footsteps are still echoing as the Staff clatters to the ground.

* * *

She stays in some random room for- she doesn't even know how long.

She can't bring herself to be in their room without Karolina.

She should try to save Karolina again. She _should_.

But the fear is paralyzing.

Knowing _she_ hurt Karolina. Knowing she isn't strong enough to save her even at her darkest, most powerful.

Everyone has steered clear of her, no doubt a little scared.

The Staff, though, has found its way back to her side.

She hasn't touched it once, no matter how much it tries to seduce her.

Nico's content to wither away in this bed, but the door creaks open.

Leslie, of all people, is the one seeking her out.

She brings her a sandwich; peanut butter and strawberry jelly with the crusts cut off.

"I didn't know what you like to eat and- well, this was always Karolina's favorite after school snack when she was young. I guess I'm feeling nostalgic tonight."

Nico doesn't turn from lying on her side, facing the wall. But she also doesn't scream at Leslie to leave.

The following silence is awkward, heavy. Leslie doesn't let it linger.

"She's strong."

It takes everything in her to not tense up, but Nico somehow manages it.

"You probably don't remember, but when you kids were little – around kindergarten age – Karolina always had a hard time at school.

Her teachers always kept us in the loop about the other kids teasing her about being so much taller for her age than the rest of your class, or flat out bullying her based on what they'd heard from their parents about the Church, though she would never complain.

But I could always tell because her light was always dimmer on those days."

Nico's fingers tighten around the corner of the pillow she's laying on, voice hoarse from disuse.

"I remember."

She doesn't see Leslie's faint smile.

"But then, one day, I get called into the principal's office. And who should I find but a severely disappointed Tina Minoru, and a trying-to-hide-it proud looking Robert Minoru, escorting this tiny little girl, feisty as all hell and fuming about how Eiffel had it coming and she can't just be mean to her best friend and get away with it."

Nico sounds so hollow.

"She pushed Karolina off the platform before she could get a grip on the monkey bars. So I decked her in the face."

Leslie chuckles faintly.

"Karolina had a bump on her forehead and a smile wider than I had ever seen on her face since she started school.

You came to her defense and protected her. She thought you were the coolest thing ever from that day on."

"She didn't need my protection."

"No, probably not. But in a world where everyone is always _talking_ about doing the right thing and being good, you _acted_ on it. She's spent the rest of her days since trying to live by your example.

I can't believe I didn't see how enamored with you she's been before now-"

That pushes Nico too far.

"Is there a point to all of this or is this another scheme to drive me mad enough to surrender myself to PRIDE?"

Leslie's eye roll goes unnoticed because even when she's snapping, Nico doesn't turn to face her.

"The point is that- she is strong, and if anyone can make it out of this situation, it's my Karolina. Because of you. She'll get through this because of _you_. _**For**_ you. By following the example you set for her years ago about being strong and doing the right thing."

Nico sounds strained.

"Leslie, get out-"

Leslie ignores her, ignores the Staff sparking faintly in warning too.

"But the point, also, is that she needs you. And if anyone can help her get through this, save her, it's you, Nico.

So you need to take the time you need, process your guilt about failing. And then you have to get back up, ask for help, and get ready to try again."

"I'm warning you, Leslie-"

"They need you. Not just Karolina, but your friends all do. And you're the only one strong enough _despite_ everything to lead them. Don't turn your back on them now."

When Leslie leaves, she leaves the plate with the sandwich on the bedside table.

It remains untouched for the rest of the night.

* * *

Nico needs a few days to rest and recover from her battle with Jonah.

In that time, she admits to needing help.

And as it turns out, rescuing Janet Stein proves valuable because apparently – while the rest of their parents were plotting – Janet did the useful thing and studied Jonah.

In the days that follow, Janet and Chase spend most of their time building weapons that'll help them incapacitate Jonah and his demented family long enough for them to rescue Karolina.

Everyone spends every waking hour making plans and training and learning self-defense because, personal reasons and everyone's love for Karolina aside, they all agree that Jonah and his people having a never-ending supply of power is bad for all of them, and utterly detrimental to their ultimate goal of ridding the planet of Jonah and his kind.

It takes them two weeks before they're ready to storm the Steins' home again.

This time, when Nico makes sure she's ready, and the Staff of One hums with the raw power to back her up, she isn't alone. And she's in control of herself and her darkness. Her rage.

This time, instead of it consuming her, it fuels her and guides each swing and swipe and spell spilling from Nico's lips.

This time, when she leaves the Steins' home, she leaves it in shambles and its uninvited guests prone.

This time, she leaves with Karolina firmly in her arms.

* * *

Karolina doesn't look well. In fact, she looks like she's been pushed to the very brink of death and brought back. Several times.

It fills Nico with a sickening swirl of anguish and guilt and rage.

She channels it all into the healing spell she sets up as soon as they're back in the Hostel, and she lays Karolina back in _their _bed.

Nobody comes looking for her for the rest of the night.

Well, not including Leslie, who simply ignores Nico's attempts to shoo her away when she tries to clean up the cut on her temple and ice her growing bruises.

Nico doesn't try sending her away very hard anyway. She gets Leslie's need to be in the same room as Karolina right now, probably better than anyone else.

The two of them spend the night watching for any signs of change, for even the barest hints of color returning to Karolina's cheeks.

By the third day of watching over her, Nico's grown more and more restless with the incredibly slow progress.

By the fourth day, Nico's agitation levels are at an all-time high.

By the fifth day, Xavin ventures into the room to check on Karolina and Leslie, to offer her services to "the Holy Mother" and her "Betrothed".

The Staff of One lashes out as soon as Nico's head whips around at the sound of that word, and Xavin pops out of view.

And even though they hear Gert's shriek about Xavin learning to knock, Nico is seized with fear.

Fear of herself because she was across the room from the Staff when it sent Xavin away.

By the end of the week, the Staff has been locked away in Nico's magic room where it remains.

Instead, Nico's taken to meditating with Leslie, and doing yoga with Molly and Gert, and taking the time to get to know Xavin.

At night, when Leslie's curled into their bed beside Karolina, when Nico can't sleep, she leaves the Hostel in search of the moon and the stars, seeking their comfort and calm.

Some nights, she'll even talk to Amy.

Other nights, she swears she hears Amy talk back.

But she always makes sure to be back in their room by dawn, in case that's the morning Karolina finally wakes up.

And one day, it is.

Leslie's not in their bed this morning, but Nico couldn't bring herself to take her spot.

Her body is too restless to lie still in bed.

Her emotions are too raw for her to trust herself not to crack.

So she's settled on sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, back to the sleeping form in it.

She's working her way through the breathing techniques that Gert's taught her when dawn comes alight in their bedroom, walls awash with glows of orange and pink and purple.

Her breath slips out of her lungs in shuddering sigh, eyes instantly full and spilling as her shoulders slump, the weight of the world finally sliding off of them.

She doesn't turn, doesn't dare to.

She's had this same dream for weeks now, and her aching heart just can't handle waking from it again.

But there is a voice behind her, soft and hoarse and croaking all at once, unlike the rest of her dream versions.

"I told you I will always come back to you."


End file.
